IN THE wake of the controversy over
J.H. Hatfield's
Fortunate Son:
George W. Bush and the Making of an American
President, Robert B.
Wallace, editor in chief of St. Martin's Press, resigned
yesterday.

Wallace's sudden departure is the latest in a
bizarre series of events surrounding "Fortunate
Son," which was released Oct. 19 [1999] and
recalled by St. Martin's last week after the
publishing house discovered that Hatfield is
apparently an ex-con who once plotted the death of
his ex-boss. The book makes allegations of cocaine
use by Bush that have not been substantiated.

"I didn't want to be associated with a book I
have no control over," Wallace said from his home.
"I haven't even read the book."

At the center of the story are some very basic
questions about the way book publishers in America
vet the credentials of their authors and check the
facts of the works they produce.

He is the same Thomas Dunne who in 1996 was
forced to cancel the publication of a biography
of Nazi propaganda overlord
Joseph
Goebbels,
written by Holocaust denier
David
Irving,
after early reviews denounced the book as
misleading and "repellent."

In
that case, Dunne claimed that he didn't know
that Irving, an English historian, frequently
lectured on the "hoax" of the Holocaust and had
been convicted of violating Germany's law
against Holocaust denial.

Given how much time publishers take to produce a book
after it is written -- almost a year in many cases --
publishing debacles are memorable, including tainted books
about Hitler, John F. Kennedy and Howard
Hughes.

Many of the top-level publishing houses, including St.
Martin's Press, routinely conduct legal reviews of books.
But the standard contract between writer and publisher
places the burden of proof squarely on the writer -- for
libel, for plagiarism, for factual errors.

"Fortunate Son," said St. Martin's spokesman John
Murphy, was "given a legal reading." He said the
company's in-house counsel hired the Washington-based firm
of Levine, Sullivan and Koch to do a legal examination of
the book, including the potentially explosive charges --
denied by Bush and his family -- that the Texas governor was
arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972 and performed
community service as punishment.

The legal scrutiny "was done well in advance," Murphy
said. "This was not a rush job."

"What happens," said one literary agent who has done
business with editors at St. Martin's Press, "is that too
many publishers sign up too many books by too many authors
with no credentials, no track record and no threshold of
credibility. Some publishing houses take a proposal that
seems to be newsy or titillating or shocking and they figure
that the person knows how to write and it might result in
some sales and so they sign it up."

Murphy said Hatfield was
unavailable for comment. Hatfield posted a reply to the
charges on the Drudge Report Web site. "When an author
writes about the current governor of Texas and the
front-runner for the U.S. presidency (whose father
happens to have been the former director of the CIA and
the president of the United States)," Hatfield wrote, "it
is amazing how quickly the smear campaign and character
assassination efforts can be mobilized."

In his online reply, Hatfield said he had been forced to
take his wife and young daughter into hiding. He reiterated
that his reporting of Bush's cocaine arrest was based on
"the informed, but confidential testimony of three sources
close to the Texas governor." But he does not talk about his
denial to St. Martin's of being the man who was convicted in
1988 of paying a hit man to car-bomb his boss.

Just before the book was published, Hatfield delivered an
"Afterword" that contained the allegations about Bush's
cocaine use. At St. Martin's, a warren of ancient offices in
the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, the document was
considered top secret and referred to only by the cryptic
letters "MJ." It was also run under the legal microscope,
Murphy said.

"The book came into us from a reputable literary agent,"
said Murphy. Hatfield "had published several books before."
One was a biography of "Star Trek" actor Patrick
Stewart.

The fact that the author might have a checkered past was
"out of the realm of consciousness," Murphy said.

About 90,000 copies were printed. Some 70,000 were
recalled; 20,000 were stored in a warehouse. The books,
Murphy said, will be destroyed.

Some editors are meticulous
about verifying the facts in the books they oversee.
Jonathan Segal, a senior editor at Alfred A.
Knopf, said he welcomes the legal review of the books he
edits. "You want to show that you have made the best
effort and that what you've published is solid, reliable,
right."

Vetting, he said, "always uncovers something -- whether
there are problems or no problems, whether everything is
nailed down."

"In our standard contract," Segal said, "the writer
warrants that everything he says in his book is true. Most
good writers are copious in their note-taking and are
interested in protecting their reputation."

It is important, he continued, for an editor to really
get to know the writer. But, he noted, "it's kind of hard to
check on the character of the person you're doing business
with."

Segal said he is demanding when it comes to the
verification of facts. "In the early draft material, I like
to see the backup on it. I ask for sources."

But, he added, "you do not want to create a climate of
tension with the author."

Fact-checking "is an extremely difficult thing to do," he
said. If a fact-driven book lands on his desk, he asks for a
"copy editor who has a schoolteachery approach to the
subject."

The copy editor, however, "is not required to make calls
to check facts the way the New Yorker
might."

"The fact-checking process at the
New Yorker has been satirized
as fetishistic," admitted David Remnick, the
magazine's editor and a former reporter at
The Washington Post. Remnick is
also the author of several nonfiction books.

He said that whereas publishing companies mainly focus on
the legal aspects of a book, his magazine goes overboard to
check every jot and tittle. "Mistakes," he said, "still leak
through the screen."

Scrutinizing magazine stories, Remnick said, "is very
expensive to do. We have in the last six or seven years
doubled the size of our fact-checking staff. It costs us
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year."

Wallace, 48, who once worked for Rolling Stone and ABC
News, has been editor in chief at St. Martin's for three
years. He said the book was published under the imprint of
Thomas Dunne, another editor at the company.

As is the custom at many large publishing houses, certain
editors, such as Dunne, have so much clout they can command
their own imprint. Dunne, Murphy said, has been at St.
Martin's for 30 years. He chooses books he wants to
publish.

He is the same Thomas Dunne who
in 1996 was forced to cancel the publication of a
biography
of Nazi propaganda overlord Joseph
Goebbels, written by Holocaust
denier David Irving, after early reviews denounced
the book as misleading and "repellent." In that case,
Dunne claimed that he didn't know that Irving, an English
historian, frequently lectured on the "hoax" of the
Holocaust and had been convicted of violating Germany's
law against Holocaust denial.

In his resignation announcement, Robert Wallace said, "I
do not in any way wish to have my name associated with
'Fortunate Son' or future books published by Thomas Dunne
Books."